Pentagon to expand intelligence gathering
US: The Pentagon, in a major expansion of its intelligence gathering
activities, plans to assemble an espionage network rivaling the Central
Intelligence Agency in size, The Washington Post reported late Saturday.
Citing unnamed US officials, the newspaper said that as part of the
project, US military officials will send hundreds of additional spies
overseas.
They also plan to overhaul the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)
which has focused primarily during the past decade on activities related
to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
When the expansion is complete, the DIA is expected to have as many
as 1,600 intelligence “collectors” around the world -- a major step-up
for an agency whose presence abroad has not exceeded triple-digits in
recent years, the paper said. The total includes military attaches and
others who will not work undercover, The Post wrote.
But US officials told the daily that the plan also includes
deployment of a new generation of clandestine operatives to be trained
by the CIA.
These new operatives are to work frequently with the US Joint Special
Operations Command, but they will get their spying assignments from the
Department of Defense, the paper said.
The Pentagon's top intelligence priorities are Islamist militant
groups in Africa, weapons transfers by North Korea and Iran, and
military modernization underway in China, the newspaper wrote.
AFP |